Ferdinand Kurlbaum
Ferdinand Kurlbaum (4 October 1857 – 29 July 1927) was a German physicist who studied light and heat radiation. He was born in Burg bei Magdeburg as the son of a magistrate and moved often during his childhood, finishing high school at 23. He studied mathematics and physics in Heidelberg and Berlin, working with Hermann von Helmholtz. In 1887 he earned his doctorate with a thesis on determining the wavelength of Fraunhofer lines.
He then worked as an assistant in Hanover with Heinrich Kayser. From 1891 he was at the Optical Laboratory of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin, researching light and heat radiation. Together with Heinrich Rubens, he made important measurements of the radiation emitted by black bodies, which helped lay the foundations for Planck’s law and quantum physics. He also studied the medical use of X-rays.
In 1904 Kurlbaum became a professor at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg. In 1908, with Adolf Miethe, he measured the sun’s temperature in Upper Egypt. From 1908 to 1925 he led the Physics Institute at Charlottenburg. He served as president of the German Physical Society from 1910 to 1912 and acted as a consultant to the Artillery Examination Commission during World War I.
Kurlbaum married Elisabeth von Siemens in 1895; they had two daughters and a son. Their son, Georg Kurlbaum, has a prize named after him for innovative economic achievements. Ferdinand Kurlbaum was buried in the Siemens family crypt at Schloss Ahlsdorf near Herzberg.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:08 (CET).